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Agricultural History Review Volume 5

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Agricultural History Review Volume 5 VOLUME V 1957 PART I PRINCIPAL CONTENTS Pollen Analysis" a technique for investigating early agrarian history by J. W. FRANKS The Sheep-Corn Husbandry of Norfolk in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries by K. J. ALLISON The Consolidation of the Croffing System by MALCOLM GRAY % The British Agricultural History Society PRESIDENT: SIR JAMES SCOTT WATSON~ C.B.E. TREASURER: PROFESSOR EDGAR THOMAS. SECRETARY: J. w. Y. HIGGS EDITOR: H. P. R. FINBERG % Executive Committee: Alexander Hay (Chairman), Miss H. A. Beecham, Victor Bonham- Carter, Miss W. M. Dullforce, G. E. Fussell, Captain E. N. Grit:fith, W. G. Hoskins, G. Houston, Richard Lamb, W. Harw00d Long, George Ordish, Mrs Joan Thirsk. The Society aims at encouraging the study of the history of eve,-y aspect of the % countryside by holding conferences and courses and by publishing The @r~cultural ¢ g, i" History Review. Its constitution is printed in Vol. I of this/~evJew, p. g3. Membership is open to all who are interested in the subject and the subscription is ON~ GUZN~Adue on ~ February in each year. % Details ,nay be obtained from the Secretary, c/o Museum of English Rural Life, 7 Shinfield Road, Reading. ,y % ¢ The Agricultural History Review % ¢i" Editorial Board G. E. FUSSELL JOAN THIRSK J. W. Y. HIGGS R. TRO\V-SMITH I-I. P. R. FINBERG The Review is published twice yearly by the B,'itish Agricultural History Society and % issued to all members. Single copies may be purchased fi'om the Secretary for ~2s. 6d. Articles and letters offered for publication should be sent to the Editor, 2* % 34 Sheffield Terrace, London, W.8, accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope for return if necessary. The Society does not accept responsibility for the opinions 4~ 2,¢¢" expressed by contributors, or for the accidental loss of manuscripts. % ¢ THE Agricultural History Review Vol. v Part I Edited by H. P. R. FINBERG 1957 CONTENTS Pollen Analysis: a technique for investigating early agrarian history j. w. Franks page 2 The Sheep-Corn Husbandry of Norfolk in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries K. y. Allison 12 The Consolidation of the Crofting System Malcobn Gray 31 The Agricultural Activities of John Wilkinson; Ironmaster W. H. Chaloner 4 8 List of Books and Articles on Agrarian History issued since September 1955 Joan Thirsk 52 Reviews: Ministers' Accounts of the Manor of Petworth, I347-53, ed. L. F. Salzman H. P. R. Finherg 58 In Crackling Flames, by Axel Steensberg J. W. Franks 58 Materials for the History of Agriculture hz the U.S.S.R. R. E. F. Smith 59 Irrigation and Closer Settlement in the Shepparton District, by C. S. Martin Colin Clark 6o Notes on Contributors II Notes and Comments 11,3°, 5 I, 57 Letter to the Editor 61 PollenAnalysis: a technique for investigating early agrarian history By J. W. FRANKS HE fact that the remains of plants are preserved in deposits laid down under waterlogged conditions has been known since peat deposits T have been worked; and amongst the remains so preserved are pollens. Pollen analysis is the study of the pollen content of sedimentary deposits. During the past fifty years it has developed rapidly. The technique is based on the fact that all the higher plants (trees, herbs, and ferns) release pollen and spores into the atmosphere. These pollen grains and spores, being very small, are carried about by air currents and become mixed before settling out of the air. In the process of settling they are known as the 'pollen rain', and it is one of the basic assumptions of pollen analysis that the composition of the pollen rain is proportional to the composition of the vegetation from which it is derived. This assumption is not strictly true: the forest trees do not produce equal amounts of pollen, and no satisfactory measure of the in- equalities has yet been devised. Furthermore, we do not know exactly how pollens are incorporated and preserved in peats and sediments. Nevertheless, so long as these limitations are borne in mind, it is believed that pollen analysis can tell us something about the history of vegetation. The pollen content of sedimentary deposits is investigated by applying a standard chemical treatment to digest small samples of the deposit, and mounting the resultant suspension of pollen grains on a microscope slide. The pollens are then identified and counted.1 The results of the pollen counts are calculated as a percentage of the arboreal pollen or of the total pollen of each count. These calculations are then presented graphically as a pollen diagram (see Fig. II). The science of pollen analysis first came into being as the result of work by the Swedish scientist yon Post. In the early i9oo's he produced the first per- centage calculations of pollens preserved in peat deposits, thereby putting the study of past vegetation on a quantitative basis for the first time. Since yon Post's pioneer work pollen-analytical studies have been used chiefly for the purpose of elucidating the history of vegetation since the last ice age, with the result that in N.W. Europe a regular pattern of development over •the last Io,ooo years has emerged (see Fig. I). It is against the background of this work that recent studies of man's influence on the vegetation must be 1 Faegri and Iversen, Textbook of Modem Pollen Analysis, Copenhagen, 1950. POLLEN ANALYSIS Approx. Pollen Name of Zone Type of Vegetation Forest Destruction Age Zones or Period and Climate Oak forests cleared. 10th Mixed oak forest with Norse land-takes. cent. little elm. A.D. VIIB Climate: Cool oceanic. 0 to recent Esthwaite early clear- ances, not earlier than B°C. Post-atlantic 2000 B.C. 3500 Elm declined. ?Climatic deterioration. VIIA Atlantic Mixed oak forest, alder in the damper places. Climate: Warm oceanic. 6000 VI Pine-hazel woods with some birch, oak, elm, Boreal and alder. V Climate: Warm dry. 8000 Birch-pine woods, with many herbs. IV Pre-boreal Climate: becoming 10000 warmer. to I, II, Late-Glacial Climate: Cold. 13000 and III FIo. I Table of Vegetation and Climatic Type in the English Lake District. considered? So far pollen analysis has suggested the following sequence in the development of vegetation prior to man's influence. After the last glaciation temperatures increased and birch woodland ex- panded rapidly. At the beginning of this period, the pre-boreal, there were many herbaceous species, but they became more abundant as it progressed. From this we may infer the development of denser woodland. In the boreal period the birch woods were invaded by pine. This points to a decrease in rainfall. The hazel became an important component of the vegetation at this time, probably forming pure hazel woods. The oak, elm, and lime began to appear, fostered by the still increasing temperatures. Soon after the appear- t j. Iversen, 'Land occupation in Denmark's Stone Age', Danm. Geol. Unders., II, 1941 , Nr. 66, pp. 1-68; and 'The influence of prehistoric man on vegetation', Danm. Geol. Unders., IV, I949, Bd. 3, Nr. 6, pp. 1-25. | 4 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW ance of the trees of the mixed oak forest, ivy appeared, showing that the cli- mate was becoming more oceanic. 1 At the end of the boreal period a major change in the vegetation occurred. The alder, which had been present in small amounts since the pre-boreal, expanded rapidly. The amounts of birch and pine, until now the most im- portant trees, declined sharply. This expansion of alder was almost certainly brought about by climatic change. At this time the mixed oak forest became established as an important unit of the vegetation. The period characterized by this type of vegetation is known as the atlantic. The end of the atlantic period was marked by the decline of the elm. This was followed by a series of clearances which destroyed the mixed oak forest and produced the present vegetational landscape. That these clearances were man-made has been shown by the pioneer work of Scandinavian scientists. The initiative was taken by Iversen, whose work on early forest clearances was the first attempt to investigate the problem by pollen-analytical methods, and is still the outstanding work in this field. 2 Iversen demonstrated, by means of pollen analyses from several Danish sites, the temporary clearances of the atlantic mixed oak forest by axe and fire, and he worked out the details of clearance, occupation, and regeneration on these sites. He emphasized the importance of certain pollens as indicators, particularly the ivy and mistle- toe. The climatic requirements of these plants are strictly defined and well known, so that their occurrence throughout the whole of the clearance period suggests that climate was not the primary factor in bringing about these changes. Since then Iversen, together with Troels-Smith and others, has shown that it is possible to clear considerable areas of high forest using only the Neolithic wooden-hafted polished stone axe and a primitive burning tech- nique still in use in Finland. Crops have been grown on the land so cleared. Iversen's work on forest clearance in Denmark has established for that country a clear picture of the course of events when the Neolithic farmers attacked the virgin forests of the atlantic period. First came the steep decline in the mixed oak forest, together with the first appearance of the narrow- leaved plantain. The depression of the mixed oak forest was followed by an expansion of birch and hazel. Immediately after the clearance fire, traces of which are found as charcoal stratified into the deposits, birch became more abundant than at any time since the pre-boreal.
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